Doublespeak is language that deliberately disguises, distorts, or reverses the meaning of words. Doublespeak may take the form of euphemisms (e.g., "downsizing" for layoffs, "servicing the target" for bombing), in which case it is primarily meant to make the truth sound more palatable.

Source - Wikipedia

There sadly seems to be a disconnection between many football clubs and their supporters of late.

Actually, it has been going on for some time but now it seems like the last brick of the wall designed to keep the 'riff-raff' from poking their noses in has been laid.

Those born after the television boom that exploded upon the footballing world in the early 1990s will not remember the time when players and managers did not seem so distant from the fans.

You'd see them on the street, in the shops, the pubs, the parks. Available for a chat with the local press no matter what day of the week it was.

Granted there were grouchy old big heads who thought themselves above everybody else but they could be easily forgotten about when you encountered their more amiable team-mates.

Whether it be accompanying Bill Shankly on his walk back home after a Liverpool match or negotiating the sale of a greenhouse from the terraces to Willie Johnston just before he was about to take a corner kick during a game, there was usually some form of connection between the supporter and his heroes.

Then somebody somewhere decided that managers and players should be more distant and isolated. And unfortunately, a large number of clubs followed this line.

PR firms were brought in to ensure that whatever heart-felt connection the supporter had with his club should be severed and for that very same supporter to only hear from his beloved when they could be bothered.

Nine times out of 10, it is via a once-weekly stage-managed press conference where the manager and a carefully chosen player (ie. one who doesn't blab too much and if he does, ensure he doesn't do a press call again) will regurgitate a pre-rehearsed script which is as bland as possible and gives very little detail away.

No more of your candid George Best or Brian Clough interviews here you 'old nostalgic dinosaur' that you are.

Clubs these days 'assure' (sic) fans that they can keep up-to-date with all the latest and exclusive news via their website and social media accounts on Facebook and Twitter.

Sounds great but the reality is that all the aforementioned mediums are vehicles for some PR or marketing halfwit to let all and sundry know how fluent he is in that most horrible of languages, bull****.

Take this press release from Millwall football club that was issued last month.

When you are told that you're going to get all the 'exclusive' news from your club's website, you expect such news to be in the form of new signings, players leaving, managers being sacked or replaced, players called up for international duty, latest news on injuries and so on.

In other words, football stuff.

Hotel partnerships?

You can bet that very morning all those Millwall fans in Deptford and Lewisham were on tenterhooks waiting for this little nugget to be confirmed.

And when it was announced, my did the pints of fizzy lager flow in London's south-east that evening.

Songs were no doubt sung by the fans at the next home game hailing this 'hotel partnership'.

I'm being cynical of course.

Millwall's best known celebrity fan, Danny Baker was not impressed as seen from the post he put up on Twitter (pictured below) in response to this:

And rightly so. Football supporters want to hear about football-related stuff. Not this commercial gibberish.

This is not an isolated example. Clubs everywhere seem to think this is 'really interesting news' and that us fans give the same two hoots about a hotel partnership as we do to a new striker being bought to rattle in a few goals for the team.

Other clubs will pepper such bland nonsense with phrases such as 'partners' (some guys you got to give you some cash), 'stakeholders' (fans), 'customers' (fans again), 'supporter experience' (going to the match, handing over the entrance money and cheering the team on), 'the product on the park' (that would be the team then), 'buy into our philosophy' (look just kick the ball in the friggin' goal will ya!!?) etc.....

Why the need to replace basic terms that are more easily understood by all and sundry with so-called buzzwords is a mystery.

As Bill Shankly once said: "Someone would say that a man was 'full of avarice'. I would just say he was 'bloody greedy'."

Lest we forget the mission that clubs embark on to patronise the fans after the team has lost a game.

Hearts have been guilty of late on this front. Those of you who follow the Jambos will have noticed a recurring theme on the club website and social media accounts when the team gets beaten.

The overuse of the phrase, "We go again!"

You can picture the PR flunkies all beating their chests and high-fiving each other when this one is typed out and put online.

No doubt they may probably have been expecting Hearts fans to do the same in the respective pubs in Gorgie that are the Diggers and Tynecastle Arms.

Mind you, one should see how those who drink at the Merchiston Hearts Supporters Club bar would react if the club ever announced an 'exciting hotel partnership'.

Again, I'm being cynical, but a dose is required to see such PR-speak for the nonsense it really is.

Grandiose schemes for a new stadium is another way of keeping the masses supplied with information to try and divert their attention away from what's happening with the team on the park.

Vladimir Romanov and his supporter stadium survey that Hearts fans were invited to complete online during the summer of 2011 which never came to anything at all.

David Murray and his talk of Rangers fans enjoying the luxuries of casinos and hovering pitches at Ibrox - again, nothing came to pass.

Lest we forget this from Celtic in the early 1990s. End result being this particular scheme never happened and somebody else having to do up the place they were already in.

Special mention for Newcastle United who recently promoted the return of the 'iconic' St James' Park gates to the stadium. So 'iconic' that Toon fans longed for them more than the reincarnation of Jackie Milburn, Hughie Gallagher or Len White.

Of course they didn't but if you'd been listening to the club's bull**** ... sorry, PR machine alone, you'd be forgiven that the fans prized these 'iconic' gates above everything else.

Have a look at where they put these gates....

Access only to a brick wall - which kind of sums up where Newcastle United are currently going (ie. nowhere) despite all the PR propaganda their official website, social media accounts and matchday programmes will throw at the fans.

Football isn't alone in this. Rugby is at it as well - although the supporters in that sport tend to be more successful in shaming the bull**** merchants.

The New Zealand rugby team's PR machine put up a vomit-inducing match report after a win earlier this year against Argentina.

The mocking reaction from their own fans led to them taking that report down from their website. Thankfully, New Zealand media captured it for future generations to laugh at.

No doubt there will be some of you who think I'm moaning about nothing in particular and that I should accept how things are these days.

If that is your view then knock yourself out in the comments box provided below.

But in the meantime, I'll continue to call out the PR-speak for the bull**** that it is and continue to inform you all that there are....

Murun Buchstansanger

26/9/2015 07:28:35 am

In the early 90's Celtic were slated for the quality of their catering products in a newspaper survey. They, responded by issuing a statement along the lines of "Our pies contain at least 12% real meat". I've never bought a pie at Celtic Park since.

The whistle

26/9/2015 09:50:15 am

Everything is controlled these days. When you consider that an I'll judged comment or tweet from a mouthy player/manager/director can wipe thousands from the share price or damage 'The Brand' you can see why they're so controlling.

Allyjambo

26/9/2015 11:15:26 am

How right you are Matt. My earliest recollection of 'buzz words' entering football was from our own Wallace Mercer. He was forever on TV or radio saying phrases like 'let's give it oxygen', which, I presumed meant, 'we should talk about it/it should be discussed'. He said it in a way that suggested he was superior to the interviewer and target audience, but clearly, in that respect at least, he was just a smart-ass nob!

And that is the purpose of these phrases, to make the user appear superior or more intelligent than his/her target audience, and to disguise the fact that he/she's not.

Matt Leslie

26/9/2015 11:49:49 am

Yet Wallace would always use clear English in telling us via the matchday programme about his holiday in San Francisco or the south of France.